Thought
by RubyBelle
Summary: That night, Charles asks if he wants to play chess.  set during First Class


**disclaimer!** If I'd made this movie or even just contributed to the comic, ERIK AND CHARLES WOULD'VE KISSED, ALL RIGHT?

High likelihood of this being left to rot. I may finish this, though. No expectations.

**Thought**

* * *

><p>He thought he was alone.<p>

After so many years, he tried so hard, so hard, just to get where he's at, and then he's here. In the water, being dragged along by some stupid fucking submarine, and it holds the only thing he's wanted to do, the only man he's wanted to kill for all this time.

But he's too weak.

He's too weak, and he knows it, but he can't let go, he won't. He holds on, with all his might, his lungs screaming from lack of air, his muscles screaming from exertion, but he'd rather die than let go.

He's all alone. This is all he wants. This is all he wants.

_Calm your mind. _

_You have to let go. _

_Calm your mind._

And then this man, this fucking idiot who's holding him back, he's in there. Erik can feel his presence, filling his mind, taking up all the corners and pleading, begging, trying frantically to find whatever it is that he could say to convince Erik to let go, to not die. To not die. To live.

_You're not alone._

Erik's glad for the water, or else this man, Charles Xavier, he'd see his tears.

x-x-x

The first night was hellish. The second, calmer. Charles accepted Erik into his life as if he'd always been there, as if they'd known each other forever. While Erik knew nothing of him, he knew everything of Erik. A sort of nameless fear gnawed on Erik's mind, a squeezing in his chest when he thinks of just that, but he stays.

That night, Charles asks if he wants to play chess.

Erik hasn't done any chess playing for years, and wonder mildly if he'd even remember the rules. Charles has the board set up, and is excited, happy. He's talking about this and that—Raven never plays with me, says it's too boring, I find it quite fun, actually, you can be white, if you'd like—and while Erik finds it mindless, he appreciates Charles' banter.

A sense of comfort, of belonging.

He hadn't had this for so many years.

As it turns out, Erik hadn't lost his touch and they're well in to their fifth game when the clock strikes two AM and Charles laughs. He jokes, says he's usually good at keeping time, and suggests maybe heading off to bed?

A pause.

But after we finish this.

Erik smirks just a tad, lost in the melancholic feeling of pleasure, he's winning for once, and both of them are just too stubborn to let a game end halfway through.

Charles puts himself in check, Erik looks up and decides to inform him how foolish that was. Charles smiles, taps his forehead, his power, makes direct eye contact with Erik, laughs.

"I know full well what I'm doing, my friend. I may even know better than you."

And Erik thinks, oh. I've fallen in love.

x-x-x

He decides to leave that night. Before it's too late. Before he drags Charles in.

Erik hates himself, he wasn't allowed to be in love. He wasn't allowed. A decade of hate, and you should lose your ability to love. To feel. Pain and anger is all that's left in him, _so why did he fall in love_? Nothing good would come out of it. Nothing short of more suffering. And—

quick.

He barely packs.

He needs to get out.

The thought occurred that Charles, he'll be a pawn.

Shaw will use him.

Hurt him.

Shaw killed the last person Erik loved.

What's to say he wouldn't do it again?

And that thought, it hurt.

It was enraging.

Erik's window, it cracked, snapped, shattered under the pressure from the collapsing metal frame around it.

He tore a doorknob out of its wooden surrounding.

Anyone who could hurt Charles, they deserved to die.

Before Charles could get hurt, he had to leave.

To keep him safe.

And so he leaves.

He's almost gone, and then there he is again. In his mind, a soothing presence, something soft and relaxing while all he can think of is hate. He's not as frantic as before, just—calm. Practical.

Innocent.

"I could make you stay. But I won't."

Erik laughs derisively in his mind, after Charles has withdrawn and is headed back to his safety, to his normal. Erik had no choice once he met Charles, he would never win. It was maddening, but when the sun rose and Erik had spent all night trying to convince himself that Charles was competent enough to not be kidnapped by Shaw—and then failing, and then trying to convince himself that, well, if he was with him, then Shaw wouldn't be able to kidnap him—he was back at the base.

Conceding defeat.

x-x-x

Charles knew well enough to let him win this once. To let it be only them on the recruiting missions.

Erik had more than one reason for this. The obvious, sensible, and given one was that if a fellow mutant saw a conspicuous-looking man in a suit looking obviously CIA, then they'd run. Lie. Ignore. Pretend.

The others, they all lead back to the same thing, the same base fears and wants, the same person.

Erik admits it to himself on the flight to their first recruit.

He wanted to be alone with Charles.

He wanted to talk with Charles.

He wanted to figure Charles out.

He wanted Charles to figure him out.

He wanted Charles.

x-x-x

The shirt he picked out, it wasn't well-fitted. Too loose. The sleeves would slide up if he wasn't careful.

A decade of hate, anger, suffering, and Erik learned to live with his scars.

Some healed nicely, some angrily. Ragged edges, smoother parts, sore to the touch and barely visible. They coated his body. If they were black, he'd almost be like a crooked, cursed tiger. Stripes and circles and unholy shapes all along his arms and legs and back and chest.

Just another reason to kill Shaw.

He wore turtlenecks because of the one damn one that ran from his chest to up, up, up, past his collarbone and ending on his neck. It would probably be close to nothing, barely visible to anyone else, but to Erik, each one of these disfigurements, they shone.

You learn to live with these things, but you never stop hating them.

x-x-x

Their hotel room—this recruit was further away than the others, and Charles voted against a red eye flight—is when the accident happened. His damn sleeves, they couldn't stay still. He had his arms folding tightly against his chest, looking out the window onto a dark street, scowling.

_Calm your mind._

Charles is bemused, mostly, by this unfathomable, sudden anger in Erik, but he is also interested. Erik's mind, it usually allows his occupation, just this presence that they both felt needed to be constant, but it was now tight and recoiled from him. The words he sends, they sooth, but Erik stays as cut off mentally as he is physically.

"Is there a reason you seem so aggravated, my friend?" Charles enquires, a serious note hiding in his kind, his polite. "I could force you to tell me, but I'd rather not."

Still searching, Charles hits a red spot, a direction to Erik's sleeves, and suddenly, he understands.

_You don't need to hide from me._

The words are so calming, so much what Erik has wanted to hear forever, and his conscience, hidden behind a wall, it curses himself.

Charles is so close, his hand so soft on Erik's forearm, he doesn't jerk away. He waits.

Charles is safe.

He is okay.

He is not bad.

He is not mean.

Charles is okay.

The revulsion Erik has to his own self, it recoils from the comforting words, and shouts back.

Pity.

Disgust.

He's seen these reactions.

He doesn't want to see them on Charles.

He struggles, and tells himself over and over, Charles is okay.

Maybe not safe.

But okay.

The sleeve has been pushed up and Charles is stared at a jagged scar, an unhappy one caused by a sharp hook, and Erik is sick. He tries to not push him away. To keep him close.

This is all he's wanted.

Charles' face is pink, quiet, and he's so close to Erik. So close, he can feel his breath, his hands are wrapped tight and Erik is looking away, afraid of what Charles will hear, what he'll do, if he'll try to break the wall and see all of Erik's secrets. Charles is so close, and the connection between them explodes. Erik gasps, Charles steps back, they stare at each other and Charles sighs.

A longing sigh, a tired sigh, a resigned sigh.

Erik felt the desire in him and he croaks out a question, to which Charles sighs again and says, "I've always known everything about you, Erik."

x-x-x

Erik loves him hot, fast, painful. The shirt is completely removed, all of his scars shining, and Charles kisses every one.


End file.
